Thursday, August 28, 2008

Democratic National Convention: Festy Atmosphere

As you know, the Democratic National Convention is in Denver and its a pretty weird scene around town. I work right downtown and its been like NYC or San Fran on a busy day at rush hour- its tough to walk down the 16th Street mall. There are Obama schwag vendors everywhere, people with signs ranging from Jesus freaks to abortion activists to "stop bird porn" walking around.

Yesterday there was a "protest" march from the Rage Against the Machine concert to the Pepsi center, it was stopped outside the Pepsi Center without incident. I took a few pictures last night, you can find better ones here.

I watched the Biden speech at a bar near the Pepsi Center and met some convention attendees. They liked whiskey shots...but said that at Mile High today they are not selling alcohol at the Obama speech and security is gonna be tight. I-25 though downtown Denver and next to Mile High is going to be completely shut down at 5:30 today until secret service decides its ok to open it up again.

There are rumors of secret shows popping up- last night I got a message that Z-trip, Cold War Kids, and Sonic Youth played somewhere at an art gallery north of downtown but none of us could find it. Yonder Mountain String Band is playing before Obama's speech tonight, hopefully they will get some air time. Good luck to anyone going or wanting to attend- seems like everyone in town wants to be at that speech.